One down...

I rode with Big A to the hospital and waited in the parking lot while he got his first shot of the Pfizer vaccine. 

There had been a previous round for his ED, but in his typical way, he'd decided that since he'd had Covid and presumably had some antibodies, he'd wait for this later round and let colleagues who hadn't had Covid go first. 💗 

Earlier this year--before the vaccine debuted--I wondered if anyone would be sending out holiday cards. I needn't have wondered. I think we actually got more cards than in previous years... there were nearly ten just today. 

Alongside the photocards of cute cousins and niblings, was one from our college prez with a handwritten greeting to me + Big A and a kind note of thanks to me. Tenure means being able to say how warm and wonderful I think this is without worrying about sounding sycophantic. 😛

Ruminations in a very minor key

1) A quiet day, still sort of recovering from Christmas. Did not want to be in closed quarters with strangers today, so I'm glad LB had cilantro to spare and was able to drop some off so I didn't have to go to the store before I made dinner tonight. 

2) Nu announced it was National Card Game Day, and we played Rummy, Coup, and Smart Ass at various times in the day to observe it 'properly.' 

3) A couple of weeks ago I gave myself some terrible bangs, but I must have decided they weren't terrible enough, so I gave myself more bangs around 1 or 2 am. Big A worked last night, and when he came home this morning, I spent like 20 minutes repeatedly yelling "Don't LOOK at me; DON'T look at me." He offered to cut my bangs next time, but we're at least four-five weeks away from being able to attempt repair. I miss going to the hairdresser, and I'm bored with my hair.

4) I can't believe I haven't brought in the hammocks and throw pillows from the backyard yet... it's not that I'm that lazy, I'm just awfully prone to wishful thinking.

By degrees

Poor Scout paid the price for repeated counter-surfing with an upset tummy. At and Nu paid too, as they got to clean him up and change the couch covers in the rumpus room. That's been the excitement today.

In other news, the pandemic rages on, and I'm dismayed at how many people on my social media and WhatsApp seem not to have let it affect their holiday plans that much. I know people have to do whatever gets them through this time, so I keep my thoughts to myself and I've never actually said anything. But it feels personal--Big A has to deal with it in the ED and the rest of us at home have been making all sorts of accommodations and adjustments around it. And of course none of this protects Big A or us if the rest of the world simply carries on in pre-pandemic ways.

Anyway.

Nu is beside me, purposely mumbling things into the Apple remote and laughing their head off at the AI suggestions. Also, Nu has been following me around for the past few days telling me about people they know vaguely at school. For example: I know N vaguely. Once they just asked me in gym: "Are you gay?" And I said "yes." And then their friend K shouted, "I knew it!"  Several rounds of three-degrees-of-middle-school later, I'm beginning to sense how much my usually too-cool and happy-to-be alone kid must miss the daily social interactions of being at school.

Small (footprint) packages

As we were putting things away yesterday, one of the things that brought me much Christmas joy is that we've honed gift-packaging waste down to practically zero. We've been reusing bags, boxes, and even collapsible gift boxes, tissue paper, and ribbon for years at this point.

Look at all this stuff ready to be packed into storage for next year!

This year's record of almost completely online shopping does mean a lot of cardboard to breakdown in the garage, but that's technically biodegradable, right? Right?

Christmas 2020

 

Almost Christmas

10:43 pm

In lieu of our usual Christmas Eve candlelight service we drove through a nearby luminaria display...

Nu and At are in bed/their rooms with their new jammies and all of their book presents...

I've prepped the breakfast pudding and the (store-bought) cinnamon rolls...

A Zoom is set up to open presents with the grandparents at 10:00 am tomorrow.

10:46 pm

Time to get back to my novel now...

"Hot Ones"

I didn't know what to make of it when one of the kids asked me, "Do you know Hot Ones?" 

Apparently, it's a long-running show where people eat progressively spicier chicken wings/cauliflower as they are being interviewed by host Sean Evans. The fam watched the Padma Lakshmi and Gordon Ramsay episodes with me to catch me up.

It's the 23rd of the month a.k.a. Big A's 'Boss Day,' and he decided that he wanted to recreate Hot Ones at home. We have a lot of hot sauces! 

Nu and I "chickened out" after the seventh; At and Big A made it to the end (obviously, Scout and Huck got some chicken but no hot sauce). Big A and I even tried to play some Buzztime Trivia to recreate some of that old eating-chicken-wings-at-Buffalo-Wild-Wings magic. Also, I did a mashup of this hot wings show and Ang's outdated greeting in ATLA to come up with "Flameo Hot Ones" just to annoy everyone. That was today's success.